Months of inquiry and discovery culminated with impressive student presentations at the Grade 7 Science Fair in the Upper School Gym on Friday, June 2. The variety of work on display spanned a range of student interests and included research in culinary arts, athletics, cellular biology, and more.
As they discussed their work with the King community, student groups described in detail how they designed and conducted experiments to test a hypothesis.
Wanting to learn more about supercooled liquids, Sophie Campbell ’28 and Maddie Allen ’28 tested different methods of converting Sprite from a liquid to a solid.
“We knew there were multiple methods to do this, but we wanted to test what was most effective,” said Sophie.
At the beginning of the project, Middle School Science teacher Lakeisha Jackson instructed the class to “think about what you wonder about and develop a question from there.”
After coming up with their question, student groups developed a hypothesis and experiment to test their assumptions. Jackson further supported the students’ self-driven research by coordinating resources, including ice cream makers and ovens, for each project.
“I’m interested in sports, and I wanted to see why professionals use oxygen and not helium [in soccer balls],” said Cal McClave ’28.
Cal, along with classmates Tess Weisman ’28 and Elsa Simon ’28, tested how far a soccer ball traveled when inflated with different gasses. Ultimately, they concluded that while helium could make a ball travel further other factors, such as the strength of the kicker and wind speed, contributed significantly to the distance as well.
Kaitlyn Lee’s '28 love for biology, combined with the death of her grandmother, inspired her to investigate possible ways to slow the spread of cancer.
“I figured this would be the perfect opportunity to talk about what my family went through,” she said, adding that she hoped her work might eventually help extend the time other families have with their loved ones.
The dedication and commitment of the students were even more impressive considering that this was the first time many of them participated in an in-person fair as their Grade 5 fair at King two years ago had to be shifted to a virtual format due to COVID.